which motor is illegal??

i know me and brutal came up with the answer in this forum but i cant seem to find it now so here it goes. Is it illegal to swap a newer than your car motor or and older than your car motor?? i can't quite remember.

so does it go by obd or actual year. i got a buddy who had a 94 gsr and is willing to pretty much gimme (someone re ended him and totaled the car). i know its obd1 but i have a 95 del sol. legal or not? and whos to say what is and isnt legal? would a cop really wanna check under my hood for an illegal motor or is it checked another way?

so does it go by obd or actual year. i got a buddy who had a 94 gsr and is willing to pretty much gimme (someone re ended him and totaled the car). i know its obd1 but i have a 95 del sol. legal or not? and whos to say what is and isnt legal? would a cop really wanna check under my hood for an illegal motor or is it checked another way?

Yep, you should be ok as long as it's the same OBD setup. Backwards OBD conversions are often frowned upon. You won't pass inspections if you're running any OBD setup besides what your car's chassis was originally wired for.

If you're in a state that doesn't do inspections though, it doesn't really matter what you do. Yes, swapping an older motor or swapping down to OBD1 from OBD2 might technically be illegal, but a cop isn't going to be able to tell that you've done that from looking under your hood...

It's like having a hacked copy of windows. Your not going to get in trouble untill someone comes inside and looks at it, normally for some other reason (pedo, money laundering), where as in your case, an emissions test would warrent a look-see, or maybe if you get caught street racing. If you see what I'm saying.

It could very well be that your area only requires an emissions spec of equal to or greater than that of what the manufacturer offered for your area.

It could very well be that your area is concerned with not only that but the year of the motor.

Quite honestly, you need to hit up your city hall, or local court system and try and get some information pertaining directly to your area.

Off the top of my head, all I know is, my county will allow equal or greater than OBD swaps, nothing prior. The county next to mine will allow anything, and doesn't even test emissions, sniff or computer. And Illinois, I'm pretty sure from reading, they are allowed to swap anything in anything, but they have emissions tests still.

Again, please check your local laws. We're scattered across the country and world, and as you can see, they vary.